THE NANKING MASSACRE - two films to remind us

Why do I do this to myself? First I watch two intensely depressing dramatic recreations of war atrocities, intense enough to haunt me for days. Then I decide to review them, challenging my love of Japan with these accounts of atrocious conduct by their armed forces.

In 1937, when Japan was invading China, its armies conquered the (then) capital city of Nanking. The Japanese army then began killing the prisoners of war, then the civilians, to strike a psychological blow to the rest of China. Knowing full well that they were breaking international conventions of war, they disguised the massacre from the rest of the world.

These are two very different films about the siege, serving two audiences: one is obviously intended for 'international cinema', the other (possibly unintentionally) is 'exploitation'.

Though they're tough viewing, knowing that these events actually happened, I wanted to learn more about the depths that the Japanese army sank to. While I admire Japanese culture, pop and otherwise, I've mainly been learning about their history from their viewpoint. But after visiting several of Japan's neighbouring countries and reading their news sites, I became increasingly aware of 'old wounds' and lasting hostilities.

While the US and Europe are hyper-conscious of the history of Nazi Germany, we mainly remember wartime Japan for Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. In China, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, Japan was regarded the same way we saw Germany. Indeed, the scale of Japanese war crimes and the variety of atrocities rivals Nazi Germany.

So I'm having trouble joining the dots between their peace-loving society of today and the extremes of their wartime mindset. How can a country change so quickly and so completely? I guess the answer is closer to home - my own country has much to answer for in it's conduct abroad, both recently and historically.

I'm not going to boycott Japanese culture for the crimes of the past, but I'm not going to ignore history either. When I first heard of the 'Rape of Nanking', I naively assumed it happened centuries ago in more barbaric times. To find that it was only last century showed up a large gap in my historical knowledge.

BLACK SUN: THE NANKING MASSACRE,
MEN BEHIND THE SUN 4
(1994, Hong Kong, Hei tai yang: Nan Jing da tu sha)

Relentless gory propaganda

This is a weird film that would need much more research to determine what the film-makers were trying to do, if I was at all impressed by it. The director, T F Mou, denies it's an exploitation film, and the size of the budget seems to lift the project out of that genre. But it's an endless diary of gory re-enactments of war atrocities, with little story or drama, and a near absence of continuing characters. The Japanese soldiers storm around the city, killing and raping. The commanders take pleasure in trying out various methods of execution, from machine-gun to samurai sword.

It looks like a wartime propaganda film, but it was made 1994. I'm almost guessing it was intended to pressure the Japanese government on outstanding issues - maybe compensation, apologies, selective history books? The other likely result was to incite outrage amongst Chinese audiences.

Compare this blunt approach to any modern American movie about the Nazis. One moment in Black Sun made me remember a silent movie where Eric Von Stroheim throws a baby out of a high window. The scene looked comical: a swift but lazy cinematic shorthand to make you hate the character in seconds, and tell you what to think about all German commanders.

While City of Life and Death shows only one Japanese leader orchestrating the destruction of the city, Black Sun takes pains to name and shame many different commanders and their personal roles in the killing. This is perhaps another clue to the movie's intentions.

After a while, the many shock moments reminded me of the climax to Soldier Blue, but in contrast with it's involving characters, storyline and complex portrayal of the invaders as well as the invaded (Soldier Blue himself is shocked by his own sides' misconduct). The Japanese soldiers of Black Sun are portrayed with a uniform hive mentality. It also doesn't help that the Japanese soldiers all look very Chinese. Only the commanders look as if they're played by Japanese actors. Lazily and inaccurately, the soldiers of both sides talk in Chinese.

I expected this to be far more cheaply made than it is. It looks largely authentic, uses a lot of extras and some extensive locations. The most spectacular scene illustrates how the Japanese burned the bodies of civilians before dumping them in the river. They could then claim that they'd only killed soldiers. The scale of the fire of hundreds of bodies along a riverbank rivals the inferno at the end of Apocalypse Now.

But if there's any doubt that what we're being shown happened, the catalogue of atrocities is verified onscreen, by cross-cutting with actual photographs and filmed footage. The power and importance of these images was not lost on the Japanese army who made every effort to destroy any incriminating material that left Nanking at the time, and they burnt any such evidence of their own when the war was lost.

There's no doubt that all this and worse actually happened, but without any emotional involvement and a clumsy, one-sided approach, it's a far less powerful and informative film than it should have been.

I watched the US region 1 DVD, which fills in much of the historical context with an informative old documentary episode of Frank Capra's Why We Fight as a DVD extra.





In the UK, it's purely been sold as exploitation, check out the crass DVD cover, which somehow borders on comedy, using a poorly staged publicity shot of one of the film's most infamous scenes. Contrast that with the US DVD cover that uses an actual archive photograph.

This is actually the fourth in a series of films, called Men Behind the Sun, which I won't be investigating any further. The first film in the series has an important subject, the horrifying human experiments of Camp 731, but the inclusion of animal cruelty and mondo footage (using an actual corpse for one scene) means I'll avoid it. However, the story of Camp 731 has one hell of conspiracy storyline and I'd like to learn more about it.

Black Sun is a bizarre experience - as it abandons so many movie conventions - that it's fairly silly to compare it to the professionally and artfully produced City of Life and Death. But I have.

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH
(2009, China/Hong Kong, Nanjing! Nanjing!)

An involving man-made disaster

This major new film, shot in black and white, is still being premiered round the world. It's also about the Nanking during the Japanese siege.

While Black Sun throws out plenty of factual context in captions and voiceovers, this has no such introduction and relies on small badly-written postcards to set up a little historical background. Black Sun also portrayed the Chinese, soldiers and civilians alike, as totally defeated. This begins with the army still defending itself, albeit with guerrilla tactics. It also sets up storylines with soldiers from both armies, one Japanese soldier being just as traumatised.


The success of the film is the emotional involvement with the characters, focussing on the family of the Chinese translator to John Rabe - a German envoy famous for his attempts to protect the civilians against impossible odds.

Unlike Black Sun, if anyone gets hurt, raped, slaughtered, the impact is devastating. There's a dreadful scene that's basically a point of view experience of being herded into a mass slaughter.


After the threat of counterforce has been systematically eradicated, the invading army are rewarded with 'comfort women', Japanese prostitutes rationed out to the soldiers. But as the siege wears on, the supply of women starts taking Chinese 'volunteers'. The widescale use of civilian women for sex lends an awful, literal meaning to 'the rape of Nanking'.

While the Japanese use of unnecessary force was meant to terrify the rest of China, it instead unified the regions of the massive country into an unbeatable foe.

The inclusion of a sympathetic portrayal of a Japanese soldier has drawn criticism from Chinese critics, complaining that the tone of the film wasn't harsh enough on the Japanese. Perhaps they would have preferred a less-sensitive, less balanced film, like Black Sun perhaps?


I'd recommend City of Life and Death as a beautifully made and observed film on a harrowing subject.

It had a limited cinema release in the UK and there'll be a DVD and Blu-Ray release in August. I watched a Chinese DVD, which may be slightly censored (missing some violence). The subtitles didn't translate all the onscreen signs and nameplates.

The excellent WildGrounds site has an article comparing City of Life and Death to actual (and upsetting) photos from the siege.

THE SKY CRAWLERS (2008) - new anime from Mamoru Oshii

THE SKY CRAWLERS
(2008, Japan)

While I'm in awe of Mamoru Oshii's achievements, especially the Ghost in the Shell movies, I've yet to enjoy any other films he's directed. Red Spectacles (1987), Avalon (2001) and now The Sky Crawlers all left me cold, and confused. I'd highly recommend other projects which he's an important creative force behind, like Jin-Roh (1998) and Blood - The Last Vampire.

Unfairly perhaps, I watched The Sky Crawlers with sub-standard subtitles (on this Malaysian DVD, pictured below) which fails to introduce the rules of 'the war' or translate the more complex dialogue adequately. But this is also how I first watched Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, and it instantly became a favourite film.

On a near-future Earth, young people fight wars so that no-one else has to (it's explained a little more fully than that). A new fighter pilot arrives at an airfield, but is trying to unravel the mysteries surrounding his (pretty, young, female) commander. As fewer of his comrades return from their regular hazardous missions, the truth slowly emerges...

The flying sequences are exceptionally dynamic, the 3D animation almost photo-real. The action is almost too fast to follow, in complete contrast to the slowly developing plot. The fluid and intricately detailed animation of the aerial scenes is also in jarring contrast to the simply-rendered 2D characters, still moving at a jerky eight times a second (the customary speed for Japanese animation). The designwork is exciting, but limited to only a few different types of aircraft.

On the ground, most of the story takes place in dull, muted interiors, reminiscent of wooden-panelled houses of WW2 England - far removed from the sci-fi scenarios anime fans might expect. The drama, basically a two-handed struggle, lost my interest completely. I'm no action junkie, but I just couldn't get involved.

While Innocence was also heavy on philosophy, I at least had a handle on the issues he was exploring, from my knowledge of the Ghost in the Shell universe. I could also enjoy Oshii's very visual imagining of the near future, without fully understanding what was going on. The weighty dialogue was compensated with intricately predicted cities, computers, robots, vehicles...


This isn't the sort of film I can recommend to anyone other than Oshii fans. The aerial scenes are stunning, but unlike Hollywood action films where the effects are special but the plots aren't, the difference here is that the story is not lowbrow, but too highbrow.

The Sky Crawlers will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on May 26th in the US (cover art at top). I wouldn't recommend anyone jumps the gun with the Malaysian DVD, because the transfer makes the action look juddery. The subtitles are poorly translated and often only flash up for a fraction of a second.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES - three versions, all sad

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES
(1988, Japan, Hotaru no haka)

Most movies are for entertainment, but not all of them. Grave of the Fireflies is a grim history lesson, not as intense as say, Schindler’s List, but certainly upsetting enough. Surprisingly it was produced by Studio Ghibli, and even the look of the characters is consistent with the rest of their much more whimsical output. As usual, you get to know the characters and care about them and their plight - the main difference is that here, there’s no happy ending. It wasn’t made to depress the audience, but presumably to educate and commemorate the civilian casualties of war. The horror doesn’t always end when the bombing stops.

I’m slowly working my way through Studio Ghibli’s catalogue, and have little idea what each film is about. I only knew that Grave of the Fireflies was set in wartime, but had no idea how gruelling it was going to be - it’s not a film to go into blindly. The story is about a teenage boy, Seita, and his little sister Setsuko, aged 14 and 5 respectively. But the film opens with a stark scene where the boy dies of hunger and neglect while sleeping rough in a train station. His spirit then walks outside to see a cloud of fireflies and he meets his little sister. The film then flashes back to when they were both alive, though we have yet to learn how the little girl is going to die…


Set at the very end of the Second World War, the movie-length flashback starts just as they are hurriedly preparing for an imminent air raid on their hometown of Kobe. Seita is burying food and provisions in the ground. He then gives his little sister a piggyback and runs for his life as the American planes start dropping firebombs. Like Kobe, Tokyo and other Japanese cities, most buildings were primarily made of wood. After fiercely sustained bombing campaigns, the cities were burnt to the ground - only the occasional brick buildings remained. Separated from their Mother and with their home destroyed, they become too much of a burden for their relatives, and try and survive on their own…

The little girl looks much like the characters in My Neighbour Totoro, which was being produced at the same time. The two films were initially released in Japan as a double bill, Totoro being seen as more of a financial risk than Grave of the Fireflies. I’d assumed that Hiyao Miyazaki was the director, but it was Isao Takahata, who later made The Racoon War (Pom Poko, 1994), which was also strong on message, though not nearly as downbeat.

Grave of the Fireflies very much reminded me of the earlier Barefoot Gen (1983), which tells a similarly structured tale of a young boy and his younger brother who miraculously survive the Hiroshima atomic blast, only to try and survive the aftermath and the devastation. Also semi-autobiographical, the story of Barefoot Gen is more horrific in detail, but somehow more hopeful in tone. While Barefoot Gen was based on a manga, Grave of the Fireflies was based on a novel, both written by men who’d lived through wartime experiences.

This anime is recommended, powerfully representing life on the receiving end of bombing raids, and then strict rationing. But while I know it’s close to what must have happened, the story was frustrating by not knowing more about what prevented the children from rejoining their relatives. The recent TV adaption, made to mark the 60th anniversary of the war's end, had the luxury of being twice as long, and able to explain much more of the surrounding story.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (2005, Japan, TV)

The TV adaption adds much-needed background featuring the other characters in the story, expanding the motivations of the rest of the family that lead to this tragedy. It's just as much from the perspective of the children as their relatives. It’s expensive and ambitious for a Japanese TV drama, though some early use of simple greenscreen compositing effects look unfortunately artificial in depicting a bombed-out Kobe. The rest of the programme is beautifully shot and the firebombing scenes are remarkably dramatic and frightening, even more than the anime. Performances are all very strong, especially that of the little girl. The climax is powerful, but not nearly as sustained and haunting as the animated version. A slushy rock song over the end titles helps deflate its final moments. It would be worth checking this out after seeing the anime version, but since 2005 there's been another remake.

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (2008, Japan)
Last year there was a movie adaption released in Japanese cinemas. It seems strange that two live-action versions have been made so close together. But the movie is presumably partially intended for an international audience, and a sign that this is a precious story for the Japanese, one that they are eager to share. At 100 mins long, and with publicity photos indicating that it sticks close to the vision of the anime, I guess it’s intended for those who don’t like watching anime. I’ve yet to see it, but there's not long to wait.


The anime is the most available form of the story, being on DVD in many countries. I can’t find a translated version of Akiyuki Nosaka’s original 1967 novel, and it doesn't look like it's been in print in English since 1978 (see here for a list of publications). Please beware that an American fantasy novel cheekily has exactly the same name. It’s here on Amazon but confusingly, it is nothing to do with this story.



The 2005 TV dramatisation is available on DVD in Japan (pictured), but has no English subtitles. The Malaysian DVD is supposed to have English subtitles, but they might not be very well translated.

The 2008 live-action movie version will have a subtitled release on DVD in Japan in March, but will hopefully eventually get a wider release.


There's more about the anime at this official site and more links at this fansite, including a page full of screenshots to get a better idea of what to expect.

Like a history lesson, you only need to learn it once. It’s very sad to watch, and I may never see it again. But I’m glad I’ve experienced the story.

Recommended anime series - FLAG, LAST EXILE, GHOST HOUND

Three anime series, for your consideration...

FLAG (2006)

This is about a photographer documenting the lives of soldiers on the front line of a modern day war, but while resembling the warfare in Iraq, Flag avoids getting bogged down in the specifics of politics, race and religion by setting it in a fictional country and switching the rebel faction's core religion to Buddhism! Chosen because she took an iconic photo of a sacred flag during a key moment in the county's revolution, a photographer is invited to record life on various secret missions, as an international peace-keeping force tries to prevent a civil war from escalating.

What instantly drew me in was the unique narrative technique - the story is told by a journalist sifting retrospectively through her photos, video recordings and interviews. It's easy to shoot this as live action on a video camera, cheap too, but in animation it's very hard to give a realistic handheld feel, though Flag has managed it. The 3D animation for the military vehicles at times approaches photo-reality, it's so expertly done.

Anime normally chooses far future war or fictional planets as settings for war stories. Here, the likeable but realistic characters, in hard-edged settings also made this appealing for a more adult audience. It just about fits into the anime sub-genre of 'mecha' due to the futuristic walking war machines that are eventually introduced into the story, but everything else about it could easily be set in the present.

Currently available in the US, with all 13 episodes spread over 4 DVD volumes, there is also a re-edited, alternate storyline, movie-length version available in Japan on Blu-Ray (pictured).

LAST EXILE (2004)

This series seems to have banked on Katsuhiro Otomo's epic anime movie SteamBoy being a big hit, which it wasn't. Last Exile is set in an alternate timeline where old technology is mixed with the new, resulting in aerial dogfights and Phantom Menace pod racing, in vehicles that look more like cars from the 1920's.

Gonzo animation has excelled itself with lush animation and a fast-moving story, full of dynamic action scenes. Though the characters are familiar, the imaginative sights of 19th century styled airborne battleships, anti-gravity racers, and starfish-shaped walking warplanes, all compensate.

This is available on DVD in the US and UK as single volumes or as a boxset. There are 26 episodes altogether.

GHOST HOUND (2007)

A very unusual murder mystery from Japanese animation house Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell) who produced this as their 20th anniversary project. 22 episodes in all - this is only officially out on Japanese DVD so far, I'm guessing that the Hong Kong release is a bootleg.

I'd been waiting for another anime similar to the startling Serial Experiments Lain, an intelligent series where science invades reality in an almost supernatural way. After Lain, director Ryutaro Nakamura made Texhnolyze which looked great, but I couldn’t understand it at all, and gave up on it. Now he's teamed up with Lain scriptwriter Chiaki J. Konaka and Ghost in the Shell author Shirow Masamune for a murder mystery series full of mind-expanding surprises.

Three schoolboys living in a remote mountain village, each with a suppressed, traumatic event in their past, are drawn back into an old unsolved murder case. Half-memories trouble their dreams and then start triggering vivid out-of-body experiences! New abilities might actually help the boys discover what happened in their pasts, and what's still going on... Oh yes, and they start seeing giant creatures from other dimensions...


This psychological drama mixes Japanese spirituality with cutting edge scientific views of the true potential of the human brain. Partly, loosely inspired by Twin Peaks, Ghost Hound uses advanced animation techniques for the p.o.v. out-of-body flying, as well as transparent ultraviolet ghostly creatures. These flourishes, coupled with the Lain-like approach to the inner workings of mind and memory, make this a stretch to follow, but still very rewarding.

Although there are a few school scenes with the usual teen subplots of bullying, cliques, and how to deal with girls... it also has extensive scenes of presumably accurate psychoanalytic methods and lectures on the structure of the brain!

Ghost Hound feels unique - a dark often deeply scary murder-mystery, that's also a transcendental fantasy. Brave narrative twists, a little adult content, a little comic relief and the teen characters hardly spend any time in the schoolroom.

There are echoes of Lain throughout Ghost Hound, mainly because of the the alternate reality, but also the occasional obliteration of dialogue by sound effects. Dynamic animation also lifts everyday situations to the spectacular, and often attempts to portray the impossible - like thought processes, blocked memories, and other dimensions... There's a more linear narrative approach than Lain, and in places, it's even more nightmarish.

The only official DVD releases so far are in Japan, but they have no English subtitles. This is a series that I'd love to have. Sometime. Soon. Please.

But, don't ask me why it's called Ghost Hound...

CATCH-22 (1970) - spectacular, gutsy anti-war satire

CATCH-22
(1970, USA)

I remember this on TV as much for the shock moments, as for the black humour and the heavyweight cast. But only after seeing it in widescreen for the first time (on DVD), could I fully appreciate the huge scale of the production, especially the ambitiously long takes during the film’s most spectacular scenes.

After two massive Hollywood hits (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate), director Mike Nichols secured a huge budget for an anti-war film. He could afford to assemble a dozen fully-operational WW2 bombers, and an extensive location shoot in far-off Italy. He was of course attempting to live up to expectations and make a great film of Joseph Heller’s great book.

Although set in World War 2, the sense of place and time is played down, so that the madness feels like any wartime, rather than a specific war. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) flies dangerous bombing missions - the more times he goes up, the less likely he is to come back alive. He wants to escape by pleading insanity to the USAF doctor (Jack Gilford). But the Doc says only a sane man would want to save his own life, therefore Yossarian can't be insane... this is one of the many paradoxical 'catch-22s' that occur in the story. His fellow airmen escape the madness in a variety of ways, but not always alive.

The film's approach is unusual in many ways. The structure occasionally dips forwards and backwards in time, and we're disorientated by Yossarian's recurring dream of an injured airman. The satire isn't aimed at the loss of life, like most anti-war movies, but the enforced lack of logic, and its motivations...



There's an extraordinary cast, headed by Alan Arkin (Gattaca, Edward Scissorhands, Wait Until Dark), who at times emits sounds like a stressed-out Pee Wee Herman. He's the only character who reacts to the ridiculousness happening around him. The rest of the cast are playing eccentrics who act as if nothing is wrong. While the characters may not have existed, Heller based the novel on his experiences on an airbase that was aiding the American forces to pacify Italy.


The legendary Orson Welles has an impressive cameo. It's also fun to see Anthony Perkins and Martin Balsam reunited in a film, ten years after their intense head-to-head scene in Psycho. A young Martin Sheen tries to kill a colonel, a coincidental practice run for his later role in Apocalypse Now. Other fresh-faced youngsters in the cast include Jon Voight (Angelina Jolie's dad), Art Garfunkel, Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, all displaying sharp comedic skills.

The insanely complex, long, single takes mix important members of the cast together with all the planes taking off en masse, as well as dozens of buildings exploding in a night raid. Two major scenes strengthened by their complete lack of fast editing or camera trickery.



Catch-22 is a more savage satire than M*A*S*H and is just as funny, but has been pretty much eclipsed by it. Both films emphasise the blood and guts spilled in wartime. But while Catch-22 starts off more as a black comedy, the humour gives way to harsh reality by the end.

Mike Nichols recently directed Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, another mix of humour and a true-life war story. He certainly hasn't lost his touch.

CHOSEN SURVIVORS (1974) - bats and bombs

CHOSEN SURVIVORS
(USA, 1974)

All I knew about this was that it was post-apocalyptic and had vampire bats in it! As it was on the DVD double-bill release with The Earth Dies Screaming, which I simply had to have, I finally got a chance to see it. Earth is a black/white sixties British space invasion, Chosen Survivors is seventies US sci-fi with a TV look and a TV cast. But its adult approach and grim plot elevates it to filmic status. Both films have been hard to see until now.

Chosen Survivors starts with a dozen drugged civilians being dragged from a military helicopter into a cave in the middle of the desert. Down deep inside is a huge, futuristic, self-contained bunker. As the drugs wear off, they get shown a presentation video informing them that the world has just been obliterated in a nuclear war, and they were all pre-selected as experts most likely to help humanity re-populate.

They try to grasp the fact that everyone else in the world is dead (apart from those in other bunkers) and settle down to life together for a few years, until the radiation levels are tolerable again. But if life wasn't tough enough, they discover a problem with their underground sanctuary - killer vampire bats...

It’s not as corny as it sounds. Intelligent plotting, sexual and psychological drama and an offbeat directorial approach make this quite a unique little movie. Director Sutton Roley was obviously trying to break out of TV with this one, though he was a master of top TV shows for decades.

Skewed camera angles are effectively used to show the disorientation of the survivors as they arrive, wide-angle lenses to accent their claustrophobia. There’s also an impressive, experimental, electronic soundtrack by Fred Karlin, just after he scored another downbeat sci-fi, Westworld.

While the cast aren't A-list, there are a few familiar faces – like, Alex Cord (Archangel in Airwolf), Jackie Cooper (Perry White in Superman – The Movie), Barbara Babcock (Hill Street Blues) and Richard Jaeckal (Grizzly and The Green Slime). And once again, Lincoln Kilpatrick gets a tricky climbing assignment, like he did as one of the night-people in The Omega Man.

I’m very glad to have seen this. Now where's the CD release?

- - - - - - -

SOLDIER BLUE (1970) - widescreen and uncut?

SOLDIER BLUE
(1970, USA)

Recommended anti-western

When it was released in 1970, the film's title and the original 'nude squaw' poster made this look like it was going to be softcore porno. In addition, the fuss in the press at the time made it sound like a violent atrocity of bad taste. From accounts I'd read about the stuntwork and particularly the gruesome prosthetic make-up effects (like in John Brosnan's book Movie Magic), it sounded like the British censors had made many extensive cuts.

On paper, the story looked more like an old-school western, 'cowboys and indians'. In fact, Soldier Blue is an early revisionist western, told more from the Native American side as well as the anti-war movement. Like Little Big Man, this film was part of the learning process that challenged the demonisation of ‘injuns’ in countless cowboy movies.

Besides trying to set the record straight on native America, Soldier Blue was also an early Vietnam allegory, targeting the My Lai massacre at a time when it was too controversial to tackle to portray – it took Hollywood until the 1980’s to do that.

  

When I first saw the film on British TV in the late seventies, heavily cut (film jumps infered this was a UK print), it was certainly shocking but for different reasons. Instead of a A Clockwork Orange, I got a rather affable romantic comedy that starts off with an exceptionally hippy song. There were a few fights, a lot of talking and a lot of cuts. All that was left of the climax were the looks of shock on the faces of witnesses.

Seeing it again now, it’s a giddy mixture of heavy-handed pacifist arguments, (cue the shot of American cavalry riding roughshod over the American flag), light comedy and brutal violence. Very seventies, but still worth catching. The techniques used to shock then are mostly unusable now. Multiple rapes, female nudity and child murder... To add to the 70's 'period' feel, it's all topped off with a jaunty Roy Budd soundtrack that constantly feels inappropriate, almost like they were trying to make the film even 'lighter'.

The radiant Candice Bergen is the fiesty lead, Peter Strauss is a touch too naive and easily offended as the 'Soldier Blue' of the title. His slow wake-up call to his new understanding of religion, women, bad guys and natives was all paralleled in what was actually going on in society at the time. A revolution of attitudes that also meant revising the written word in history books. The massacres of civilians by American troops were hard to believe back then, but are now verified facts in both Sand Creek, Colorado in 1864 and My Lai, Vietnam in 1968.

Donald Pleasence rounds off the leading actors to make the middle act more enjoyable, but the meandering storyline drifts way off-topic before the climax kicks in.

Shot totally on location, I was surprised by the huge mobilisation of soldiers and horses. The climactic battle is mounted on an extremely large scale. The film includes horse stunts that are no longer allowed in the UK - they were cut from a recent TV transmission and will presumably be missing from any UK DVD release. A decapitated head, and a rape scene are also missing from the Momentum DVD about 28 seconds in all.

The Dutch Kinowelt DVD version, although hinted at in dialogue, no scalpings are shown, and the infamous breast cutting is simply, but effectively done with a special effects knife that shoots out blood. Today it's not the gore that shocks, even in this 'uncut' version, but the full-frontal nudity and the elaborate stunts showing the killing of children.

Like many censored movies, decades of rumours confuse what scenes were shot and what was actually seen in the cinema in different versions around the world. But this is certainly the least cut version I've seen.

The Kinowelt release has a colourful, bright film transfer from a good print, with a clear audio track. Good to finally see it in 2.35 anamorphic widescreen too.

The US DVD cover has Donald Pleasence's name misspelt
and a cowboy who isn't in the film at all!

This might be the same version of the film on region 1 DVD from Lionsgate, but I’ve read several instances of film scratches, dull colour and warbling audio, but I’ve not seen for myself. Here's a review, with screengrabs.



Do you want to know more?

For screenshots from the German Kinovelt DVD (which I believe is the same release as the Dutch DVD that I have), try this page from DVD Active.

There's also this book about the film.

KING NARESUAN - PART 2 (2007) the epic battles on

KING NARESUAN - PART 2

(Thailand, 2007)

My memories of this holiday in Thailand already feel like a dream. Watching a movie on holiday feels like a dream within a dream.

But I saw Part 2 of the King Naresuan trilogy during the opening weekend. It was released in Thailand cinemas on February 15th for the Chinese New Year holiday weekend. (My Part 1 review is linked here). Part 2 is 150 minutes long, but doesn't feel like it.

About 10 years have passed since Part 1 of the story. Prince Naresuan is now a young adult. With King Bayinnaung of Hongsa (Burma) dead, the alliances he worked hard to maintain quickly start to fragment under the war-mongering rule of his son. But the King was well-prepared, ensuring that Prince Naresuan, good at both warfare and wisdom, is still set to inherit the throne of Siam (now Thailand), hoping that he may be able to bring peace to the whole region.

As the power game continues, now using brute force, it’s kingdom against kingdom. A simple insult can spark all-out war between territories. As the uneasy Hongsa alliance closes in on the mountain fortress of the rebellious King of Khong, Naresuan is unaware that some of his allies want him dead. As he joins battle for the alliance, his real intent is on freeing his people from Hongsa rule and returning them to their homeland.

Most of Part 2 is warfare, 16th Century-style. There are occasional flashbacks to pivotal moments in Part 1, and enough room for an unlikely romance, but it’s mostly preparation for war and epic battles. Swords, muskets and cannons are the weapons of the day. Burning oil and arrows are optional.

As an action film from the Far East, this is very different from what we’re used to seeing. It’s not like the flashy Chinese epics, where warriors have perfected their martial arts to the point of weightlessness, it’s just people fighting. There are no fighting styles, it’s just wading in with swords and trying to incapicitate the enemy. It’s more like the Japanese Kurosawa epics, where we see the force of numbers and the importance of strategy. Even so, there are no superhuman samurai here. There are a few warriors who can handle two swords simultaneously, but generally it’s bravery, tactics and the accuracy of the cannons that win.

It doesn’t compete with the high-excitement of Hollywood action movies – the fight choreography and the stuntwork are solid but unexceptional, but this all makes it look more realistic. The importance here is the drive of the story and what happens to the characters. Having said that, the carnage of the cannon blasts was something that I’d not seen in a movie before – people and horses are sent flying in all directions.

In short, this looks like an epic. Epic in scale and numbers, but without Hollywood’s reliance on far-fetched stunts and CGI. Just because you can paint a picture of an epic in a computer, doesn’t mean to say that you’ve made one. Epics are mounted. With large numbers of people, huge outdoor sets – I’ve not seen one so impressive since the 1960s.

The sparse use of CGI makes this more convincing. The establishing shots have been extended in the computer, like traditional matte paintings, where real action is at the centre of frame. Digital compositing boosts the numbers of soldiers. The important thing here is that all the people you see are real - what you don’t get is unconvincing CGI people running around. Up close, buildings have been built full-size from scratch – there are no swooping shots around non-existent fake-looking structures. Mostly, the sets, the people (and the elephants) are all real. It looks fantastic.

The character of the Prince starts off being boringly accurate in his battle strategies in the early part of the film. But even he starts showing cracks, like when his sister defies him. Thankfully, good advice is still available from his mentor the Head Monk, one of the best characters from Part 1.

The adult Naresuan is played by Wanchana Sawatdee, actually an officer in Thailand’s royal cavalry! The director wanted an unknown to personify the legendary Prince, and a real-life actual soldier who could effortlessly ride a horse isn’t a bad choice. Like the three central children in Part 1, he's a newcomer to acting, but still convincing. Many other established actors had to learn to ride and fight (simultaneously!) and underwent extensive training, as did the extras.

Whereas, the first film laid on thick the necessity for the Siamese bloodline to continue, the second film shows that the allies are made up of all different races, from Africa to Portugal. When the baddies need silent assassins, they even bring in headhunters, whose methods are far from subtle…

The violence is fairly family-friendly in tone, apart from some capital punishment dealt out to traitors (the hanging seen in some trailers), and one fight where blood sprays and heads come off - rather out of tone with the rest of the movie.



Both entertaining and fascinating, the films breathe life into the roots of Thailand’s culture. The scale of these films are new highpoints in Thai cinema. Once more, I hope that they'll find a wider audience. They are the most expensive Thai films to date. I’m just worried that audiences will be put off by the lack of action in Part 1 and might then miss out on Part 2.


Do you want to know more?

The Bangkok Post review is here, but full of spoilers.

Part 1 reviewed here.

UPDATE June 2007 - Parts 1 and 2 released on DVD and blu-ray in the US.

KING NARESUAN - PART 1 (2007) a true epic

KING NARESUAN - PART 1

(2007, Thailand)

KING NARESUAN - Part 1

'Hostage of Hongsawadi' (180 mins)

War is usually declared when diplomacy breaks down. This is the case with the story of King Naresuan. Part 1 is all about diplomacy, it’s not until Part 2 that the fighting really begins. The viewer has a choice. If you want to know what’s going on in the all-action Part 2, you have to see Part 1. Also, bear in mind that despite the title, Naresuan doesn’t become King in the first two films…

Part 1 premiered in Thailand on January 18th and at three hours duration, it’s quite a history lesson. It has to introduce a tangle of players and future players in the palaces of enemy Kings - in Siam (now Thailand) and neighbouring Burma (now Myanmar).

While the story of the consolidation of Siam is mainly of interest to the Thai people, this is also a sumptuous recreation of a 16th century far east, quite different to the Chinese and Japanese cultures. It looks very different in terms of clothing and architecture, and the tropical climate provides a very different backdrop than previous oriental epics. For anyone who’s visited the country, there are familiar temples, elephants, even tattoos, and the fire-jugglers still seen on the country’s beaches.

Another flyer, showing the young Prince (Pratcha Sananwatananont)

and Head Monk (Sorapong Chatree)

The story centres on the young Prince Naresuan as he is taken hostage away from his family, to the Burmese capital of Hongsawardee, by King Bayinnaung (Sampob Benjatikul) who pretty much adopts him and raises him as a new hope. Despite keeping him prisoner, he still respects the Prince as royalty and has him tutored by the Head Buddhist Monk, who is extremely wise (to an almost Jedi standard) and an expert in the art of fighting - Mahathera Kanchong is one of the few familiar faces in the cast, and is played by Sorapong Chatree.

Bunthing, Manechan and Naresuan as they appear in Part 1

Now a monk himself, the prince befriends two orphans, Manechan and Bunthing, who are also to become important to the story. Manechan lives at the temple, but doesn’t know how important she really is, and Bunthing, despite being a renegade thief rather than a noble, is also learning to be a great warrior as the Prince’s sparring partner.

But with three children as the central characters, the story alternates between infantile hi-jinks and the high-powered diplomacy unfolding around them, as the Burmese King attempts to peacefully manipulate the local kingdoms together. He knows that his country cannot make any progress if they are at war. The King fears that his son and heir will make a better warrior than a King and that the fragile peace will only last as long as he stays alive...

To boil the history and all the legends about historical characters down to a more manageable size, obviously some of the events and characters. Part 1 maybe easy for the people of Thailand who already know something about Naresuan, it was a little hard for me to follow all the long character names and who they were. Not to mention the geography of the area as it was 400 years ago. For instance Thailand was then called Siam, Burma (now Myanmar) was then Hongsa, or Hongsawardee.

Also Thailand is probably keen to see the exploits of the young hero brought to life, but for the rest of us, it’s just a historical drama. If you can follow it, the hours of diplomatic strategy are intriguing, particularly the work of King Bayinnaung, but they only becomes relevant when you’re watching Part 2. I could argue that the director could have spiced it up more to make it more of an entertainment, but it’s difficult in a country that respects its royalty so much. I believe the director is actually a Prince himself!

Director Pratcha Sananwatananont on the set of the King of Hongsa

The film has an epic feel, due to the complete recreation of the Burmese capital as it was in the late 16th century - a huge outdoor set that was built full-size from scratch (see my later entry about the 'making-of' documentary). The palace sets are lushly recreated, the streets are full of people and most of the simple dialogue scenes are in front of windows that display action stretching into the distance. As an evocation of past events, the film succeeds completely.

The temptation might be to start with Part 2, then watch Part 1 as a huge flashback. But it worked for me in sequence, particularly watching them on consecutive days. Treat Parts 1 and 2 as one huge film, then the action in Part 2 will compensate for the long build-up in Part 1.

Do you want to know more?

ThaiCinemaOrg has a good selection of photos of the main cast.

Bangkok Post has a lengthy interview with the director.

See also my posts on King Naresuan Part 2 and the making of the trilogy.


UPDATE June 2007 - released on DVD and blu-ray in the US.

The biggest movies in Thailand at the moment are the first two parts of an epic trilogy. The story of the King who fought to unite and defend the nation of Siam. The director even sought advice from Peter Jackson in planning such a large scale project and started production over three years ago. Like Lord of the Rings, the running time of all three films should approach a total of nine hours.

They are all directed by Chatrichalerm Yukol, who made the epic Legend of Suriyothai (2001), the events of which also lead into the story of King Naresuan.

The huge advertising hoardings, posters and trailers, cannily work for both of the first two films, using the image of adult King, even though he doesn’t appear until the second film. Released within weeks of each other, Part 1 and Part 2 complement each other. The third film won’t be released until December 5th 2007, in order to coincide with the present King of Thailand’s 80th birthday.

To mark the event, there’s been a merchandising and publicity blitz across the country. Movie props adorn the major cinemas – we saw a larger-than-life prop statue of Buddha, costumes and weapons from the film, in the Paragon Cineplex atop the Siam Centre in Bangkok, where we saw the films. Thankfully, there were plenty of screenings subtitled in English.

Every 7/11 store in the country has a King Naresuan stand, selling t-shirts, caps, keyrings, postcards and storybooks, with magazines and a VCD on the making of the film. In Bangkok we even saw a King Naresuan action figure and a large 'making of' book. I'll showcase the merchandise and the VCD is a later entry. But first the film...

J.S.A. JOINT SECURITY AREA (2000) North and South

J.S.A. JOINT SECURITY AREA
(2000, South Korea, IMDB title: Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA)
Thai Region 3 PAL DVD

Like many fans of South East Asian cinema, I'm more than impressed with director Chan-Wook Park's 'vengeance trilogy'. So while I keenly await his next film Cyborg OK (the trailers are already online), I've just watched the film whose success enabled him to make Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.

A poster for Chan-Wook Park's next film - I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK

Joint Security Area isn't as outrageous stylistically or narratively as Oldboy or Lady Vengeance, being a fairly straightforward murder mystery. But there are some directorial flourishes and a offbeat dark humour that indicate the direction he would soon take. Set in the neutral no-go area between North and South Korea, a shooting incident leaves two soldiers dead and two wounded survivors - one from each country.

A Dutch investigator, fluent in Korean, is brought in by the neutral peace-keeping force to determine exactly what happened. In prolonged flashbacks we learn about the lives of the men in the months leading up to the fateful night - a scenario the authorities hadn't anticipated...

The director manages to play both sides here, delivering a violent, occasionally bloody thriller to demonstrate an anti-violence theme. The film also attempts to counter the demonisation of North Koreans as seen by the South. For an international audience, there's enough exposition to get everyone up to speed with a brief history of the country's division - certainly very relevant at the moment. Other recent Korean films braving the subject, like Ki-Duk Kim's The Coast Guard (2002), expected the audience to know their history.

The main strength of the film is the performances - the leading members of the cast all returned to appear in Park's subsequent films. The investigating officer in J.S.A. is played by Lady Vengeance herself, Yeong-ae Lee. The North Korean officer is Kang-ho Song, Mr Vengeance, also a familiar face in cult Korean films such as The Quiet Family, Memories of Murder, and this year's blockbuster The Host. The other soldiers in 'the incident' are played by Ha-kyun Shin, also from Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, and Byung-hun Lee, the lead in Park' s contribution to Three: Extremes.

The only distraction in the film were the western actors with English-speaking parts, but thankfully they are not in many scenes. The film is otherwise very satisfying on many levels - beautifully shot, cleverly written, with an excellent cast. It maintains quite a grip throughout, because we know where the story leads... but not how it happened. It's quite hard to categorise in terms of genre, and different scenes could be war, mystery, comedy, thriller, or drama. Once again, I'd recommend this over many Hollywood films, but it's only going to be seen by those who can cope with subtitles.

This Thai DVD (pictured at top) is 2.35 anamorphic widescreen, with DTS and 5.1 audio. There's a trailer included and some behind-the-scenes footage. The English subtitles are OK, but occasionally mis-timed. Thankfully, the film has also been released in many other countries on DVD, including the UK and the US.

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